In a moment of pure lucidity, which is certainly unprecedented for him, Fyn begins giving orders to fall back and regroup. The party hasn’t seen this side of him before; it is a sharp contrast to Fyn’s usual airy demeanor.
With the exception of Barnaby, the party begins to retreat down the hallway and prepare for the worst. Lucrecia and the two stone giants are quite imposing, after all. Fyn casts communal stoneskin, granting the party some extra protection against the anticipated onslaught.
Lucrecia slithers forward and casts mirror image on herself before disappearing entirely from view. The other stone giant (not the important one on the throne), begins approaching while hurling boulders repeatedly at the party. Barl Breakbones touches his golden hoop earring and the faint image of the Sihedron rune flashes briefly in front of him before engulfing him in a translucent purple light.
Grouping Up
While this is happening, the rest of the party scrambles to form up around Fyn to gain the benefits of his magic. Fobias downs the last potion that Theo left him, not knowing the contents. He begins to rapidly grow in size. Meanwhile, Trace smites Lucrecia but she disappears before he can act further. Richard attunes his nose to try and pin down Lucrecia’s location before she is too close for it to matter.
Fyn is calm and collected as he hastens the party and protects them from evil. Meanwhile, Barnaby vanishes.
As the party gathers, Barl floats off his chair and summons a fireball to decimate the huddled group. Luckily, the stoneskin manages to absorb a solid portion of the damage that the party couldn’t avoid. With solemn confidence, Barl points at Trace and a spectral hand begins to fly in that direction.
The archers break off and form up against the back wall, firing their arrows in a steady volley towards the stone giant tossing boulders. Trace charges into the fray, but Lucrecia appears and slashes out at him with her dagger in an uncharacteristically uncoordinated motion. The paladin ducks under the blade and returns the favor, dispelling one of Lucrecia’s images in the process.
At that moment, the spectral hand arrives. With a shiver, Trace shrugs off the feeling of his bones wanting to burst from his own skin. Tragedy avoided.
Opportunity Beckons
Because of Trace’s heroics, the party now has a perfect opportunity to burst down Lucrecia’s images. Between Krask, Jak, and Shalelu, the trio fires volley after volley towards the lamia and shatter the remaining images. This was precisely what Barnaby was waiting for! He appears behind Lucrecia and slashes her open with his scimitar, producing terrible wounds that bleed profusely.
Fobias and Trace join in on the action, surrounding Lucrecia on all sides. Even her dagger, enchanted to destroy a targets wisdom, isn’t enough to save her.
Fyn, being ever-supportive, begins summoning a dire lion to help tip the scales in the favor of the party. However, when his creature appears it is the resplendent form of a beautiful peacock instead. Not at all what was expected. Of course, Fyn’s reaction is that of any devotee, but Barnaby also seems to be coming around to the idea that the Great Peacock is watching over the group.
Barl, seeing his lines of defense weaken, flies towards the center of the room and draws his earth breaker. This massive hammer looks capable of bashing several skulls in a single swing, and the party knows that they need to limit the damage as much as possible. Fobias finishes off the other stone giant and Lucrecia’s merlot-infused blood spills forth as all eyes turn to Barl.
Before the earth breaker can wreck any havoc, Fyn turns to an old trick: confusion. Barl is inflicted with a bout of mind-wracking confusion which limits his ability to think coherently. He growls and sputters as he tries to maintain hold of his faculties, but the party moves quickly to surround him. Trace smites down upon the stone giant, severely wounding Barl and causing him to drop his hammer as he begs for a ceasefire.
He can tell them anything they want to know. It just depends on what the party wants first…information on Garitran or Mokmurian.
What relationship exists between Mokmurian and Garitran, if any? What evils have the Kreegs been planning? Is the dire lion trapped in some pseudo-limbo dimension?
Rules Clarifications:
One rule that we forgot about was the near-miss effect on the mirror image spell. If an attack misses by 5 or less, then the attack causes one of the mirror images to be dispelled instead of just being a straight miss. This helps prevent severe tankiness of a creature that has a high AC and a high enough caster level to generate a bunch of images. In this case, there weren’t many opportunities for this to come into play with Lucrecia’s invisibility, but it probably would have gotten rid of the images a round sooner.